FALL RIVER — City trash and recycling trucks hit the roads at 7 a.m. Monday, the first day of the pay-as-you-throw program. And by noon, Kenneth Pacheco, director of community maintenance, was pleased with how things were going.

Monday is pickup day in the South End, and Pacheco was out in his work-issued vehicle checking in with his sanitation crews and seeing for himself what people were leaving in their trash and recycling carts.

Peering into a green trash bin on Bay Street, Pacheco discovered five purple bags with the city's insignia printed on the front.

“That’s what we want to see,” Pacheco said.

In other trash carts, Pacheco found a mix of purple bags and regular trash bags. He anticipated it the first week, Pacheco said, because people likely hadn’t purchased the new regulation trash bags until the weekend. Pacheco said if he took the mixed refuse out of the equation, he believed the percentage of compliance would increase by 15 points.

But up the street, five recycling and trash bins on the sidewalk were overflowing with trash — and there wasn't a purple bag in sight. Pacheco talked with the homeowner, who said she didn’t know about the pay-as-you-throw program until that morning.

Armed with material discussing pay-as-you-throw, Pacheco explained the new program and called to make arrangements for the woman to get her free bag. After that, he told the homeowner, she would be responsible to purchase her own.

A city trash truck pulled up moments later, and the crew attached the bins of trash to an automatic arm that poured the contents into the truck.

“They’ve gotten some information one on one, and we shouldn’t have to go back,” Pacheco said later.

City staff was also on the lookout for trash bags that weren’t placed in the green carts.

Pacheco said all trash and recyclables will be picked up this week regardless of compliance. The crews on the city’s 14 sanitation trucks were keeping track at each stop and making notes of who is compliant, partially compliant or noncompliant.

Four other sanitation workers were on the road ahead of the trucks collecting additional data and the addresses of the residents who failed to toss their trash in the pay-as-you-throw bags.

The data will be compiled, Pacheco said, and sanitation workers will use it next week to compare and further monitor compliance.

Sitting in a fully automated trash truck in a neighborhood on Mount Hope Avenue, sanitation worker Ken Travis said he was impressed with what he was seeing on the first day of the pay-as-you-throw program. He believed that, so far, 85 percent of residents on his route used the purple bags.

Page 2 of 3 - “I can already see people starting to use the bags, and I think as they get more information, they will be more willing to participate,” Travis said. “I tell them not only are they helping the city, they’re helping the environment.”

The administration claims the pay-as-you-throw program will generate $3.5 million in revenue from the sale of the bags, savings in trash tipping fees and increased recycling.

Travis said he’d already seen an improvement in recycling on the first day. He monitors how many trash carts he picks up versus the recycling carts.

“Today, recycling is outdoing trash,” Travis said.

Sanitation worker Bobby DeSoto said he and his partner, Dave Fernandes, were able to work more quickly with the uniform plastic bags without having to deal with loose garbage in the carts, which can slow down the process.

“And look, I’m clean,” joked DeSoto.

In addition to compliance checks, Pacheco said his staff is on the lookout for counterfeit pay-as-you-throw bags. That morning on his way to work, Pacheco said he saw a number of purple plastic bags on South Main Street between Rockland and Center streets.

Pacheco said he knew they weren’t the real thing. What gave them away, he said, was that they didn’t have the city insignia and didn't have drawstrings.

Next week, a compliance officer will be sent to see if the counterfeit bags return.

Representatives from WasteZero, the company managing the pay-as-you-throw program, were in the city making sure the more than 35 retailers selling the bags had enough on hand for the anticipated rush from residents stocking up, Pacheco said.

Mayor Will Flanagan has been under fire from both the City Council and residents after he announced his intention to implement the pay-as-you-throw program in late May. For months after WasteZero presented the program during a council subcommittee meeting in February, Flanagan vowed that the program would not come to the city.

Flanagan has said he changed his mind because the city was losing annual revenue from the soon-to-close Fall River Industrial Park landfill in host fees.

He said Monday that he’d received positive feedback from residents over the weekend and was happy with the roll-out of the program. Flanagan said he wanted to stress that any revenue generated from the new program was going directly toward city services.

“The money will be going to public safety and community maintenance,” Flanagan said.

The administration intends to add to its compliance staff through a $200,000 provisional Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection grant in that will fund five temporary positions.

The provisional grant requires the city to institute an ordinance that would require private trash haulers to recycle.

Page 3 of 3 - A hearing regarding the ordinance and other proposed regulation will be addressed by the Board of Health on Tuesday night at 7:30 at Government Center.